Manuscrits liturgiques réalisés à Avignon dans la première moitié du XIVe siècle. Nouvelles découvertes dans les collections du Vatican

Abstract

Liturgical manuscripts produced in Avignon in the first half of the XIVth century ; new discoveries in Vatican collections. A search for the manuscripts used in Rome by the canons of St. Peter’s Basilica has resulted in the discovery of a new group of liturgical books produced in Avignon in the XIVth century. An examination of these thereby offers a more detailed vision of the middle decades of the century, thanks to knowledge of the orders placed by the most senior prelates. It shows a close link with St. Peter’s Basilica, and also with new international workshops active in the city of the popes. Two manuscripts can be identified as having been ordered by prelates of the Avignon curia, Annibaldo Caetani da Ceccano and Jean de Cardaillac, while two others seem to have been ordered directly by the Chapter of St. Peter. The illuminations of the latter, a psalter and a breviary, can be attributed to two important Florentine artists, the Master of the Codex of St. George and the Master of the Dominican Effigies. While the Avignon activity of the former has already been demonstrated, this is the first time that a manuscript allows one to envisage an Avignon stage in an examination of the second. In both cases, the Chapter conforms to what one knows of the circulation of the illuminated books in Rome in the XIVth century, while, in the absence of the curia, the orders were placed with illuminators who were working elsewhere. The manuscripts linked to the two prelates similarly share some essential characteristics : the quire containing the Episcopal benedictions, which is earlier than the Missal, was illuminated for Jean de Cardaillac by an Avignon artist known by the name of the Master of the Pontifical of Pierre de Saint Martial. The Gospel Book commissioned by Cardinal Annibaldo Caetani da Ceccano, perhaps for the use of the Chapter of St. Peter of which he became Dean in 1342, witnesses, in addition to an unusual illustrative project, the activity of the two important artists who were unknown until now. The two illuminators, the one a Frenchman of eclectic culture, the other an Italian, perhaps trained in Abruzzi, demonstrate a capacity for mixing their knowledge, a procedure hitherto unknown in the production of illuminated manuscripts at Avignon in the first half of the XIVth century.